Today In The Culture, May 30, 2023: Equity Arts Tapped For $5 Million | Canniplex Opens In West Town | Local News vs. AI

OKAY Cannabis at West Town Bakery/Photo: Ray Pride

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DESIGN

Tesla Blazes Gold Coast

Tesla is abandoning its Rush and Delaware showroom, reports Crain’s, one of only two in the city.

DINING & DRINKING

Jonathan Zaragoza Opens Cálli At Soho House

“With chef Stephen Sandoval’s restaurant Sueños moving to West Town following an extended residency that ended in May, Soho House needed a replacement,” writes Eater Chicago. “It found one in former James Beard award semifinalist Jonathan Zaragoza, whose family runs… Birriera Zaragoza” Cálli has been open since earlier this month. “Zaragoza most recently consulted on Con Todo in Logan Square and left in April 2022, six months before it closed.”

Canniplex Opens In West Town

In the works since 2019, West Town’s one-stop weed-sweets beer-pizza half-block has finally opened, reports Block Club, with recreational pot dispensary OKAY Cannabis located near Chicago and Damen, featuring the slogan, “We’re All OKAY.” The partners include Scott Weiner and Greg Mohr, “co-founders of the Fifty/50 group, which operates West Town Bakery, Roots Pizza [both adjacent to OKAY] and other local restaurants… former 47th Ward Ald. Ameya Pawar… and George Chiampas, medical director for the Chicago Marathon.”

“‘To do it here with the original Roots, the original West Town, it’s special,’ Mohr said… ‘It brings a little bit more to this neighborhood and this street. We’ve been here for twelve years or so, we’ve seen it kind of come up, it’s been pretty awesome.’ … Owners want to provide more than just the ‘Apple store’ experience customers often find at dispensaries… around the city,” with events including growers.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Fires Up Downtown Naperville

“The Naperville location at 39 West Jefferson Street joins Ramsay’s Kitchen locations in Boston and Las Vegas, both of which opened in 2022,” reports the Naperville Sun (via the Trib).

Carbondale’s Classic Dairy Queen Has Its Franchise Pulled

“The historic Dairy Queen location in Carbondale has had its franchise license pulled by corporate as DQ pushes its ‘Next Gen Design,'” posts St. Louis Public Radio’s Brian Munoz. “Decades of SIUC alumni will remember the iconic ice cream shop, whose owner has vowed to reopen independently.”

FILM & TELEVISION

Checking Into The Route 34 Drive-In

Frank Sennett reports that the Route 34 Drive-In in Earlville will continue to run after the February passing of its longtime exhibitor, Ron Magnoni, Jr. Sennett evoked the summertime stalwart for Newcity in a long piece in 1997 here.

Pre-Dawn Picket Lines Strike Chicago Productions, Too

“Since the Hollywood writers’ strike began on May 2, [union members] have been waking before dawn to try to disrupt productions whose scripts had already been finished,” reports the New York Times. “Showtime paused production on the sixth season of ‘The Chi’ after writers gathered for two straight days outside the gates of the Chicago studio where it was filming… In addition to fortified Los Angeles soundstages, writers have picketed locations in the New Jersey suburbs, New York’s Westchester County and Chicago. And social media has provided a way to alert writers to quickly get to specific picket lines.”

Latest Version Of MoviePass Claims 4,000 Screens Included

A complicated series of memberships and “credits” to be purchased are part of the latest incarnation of discount movie ticket service MoviePass. Chicago-area theaters that are listed include a raft of Classic Cinemas and AMC screens, with the site listing River East, 600 North Michigan, Block 37, Alliance Française, the closed Brew & View, Lake, Cinema Chatham, Chicago Film Society, Davis, Doc, Siskel, Glen Art, McHenry Outdoor Theatre, Harper Theater, Landmark Century, The Logan, Midway Drive-In, Music Box, New 400 Theaters, Pickwick Theatre, City North, Webster Place, Renaissance Place, Showplace ICON and Wilmette. (The participation of these exhibitors has not been independently confirmed.)

LIT

“Florida Mom Who Sought To Ban Amanda Gorman’s Poem Says She’s Sorry For Promoting The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency gets Headline of the Month: “Months before a Miami-area mother persuaded a local school to restrict access to an Amanda Gorman poem, she was posting antisemitic memes on her Facebook page.” Now, the woman “is apologizing for one of those things—and unrepentant about the other. ‘I want to apologize to the Jewish community,’ [she] told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency… She was saying sorry for a Facebook post she shared in March offering a summary of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ a notorious antisemitic forgery written more than a century ago in Russia. The woman said, ‘I’m not what the post says. I love the Jewish community.'”

Meanwhile, Florida’s governor, calling it a “poem hoax,” rejects criticism of the state’s system of book removals, reports Greg Sargent at the Washington Post. “The poem offers a dramatically different message from racial discourse the right usually objects to, i.e., that our white-supremacist past and continuing structural racism render our country irredeemable. The poem says our nation ‘isn’t broken but simply unfinished.’ … DeSantis objects to calling what happened a ‘ban.’ But the book was placed beyond the reach of elementary school kids for no reason whatsoever. What message does it send that a school went along with the idea that the poem read by the young Black poet at Biden’s inauguration is inappropriate for children, on grounds that it constitutes hate and indoctrination?”

Gorman replies to the presidential aspirant: “They won’t call it a ban. Yet not only has my book been moved, but now elementary schoolers must request a copy from a specialist at its new site AND then also PROVE their reading level before seeing a copy. All these hurdles for a young reader just to access a poem in history written for them… History is not ours to hoard from children. History has always been theirs to make. And the more they’re empowered to know our yesterdays, the more prepared they will be to lead us into tomorrow.”

Art Spiegelman And “Maus” On MSNBC

“I have been trying to figure out ‘Why “Maus”‘?” says Art Spiegelman of bans of his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about his family’s experience in the Holocaust, reports MSNBC in a profile. “But ultimately, ‘It is still about all other-ing.'”

MEDIA

Mike Flannery Retires After Half-Century

Mike Flannery, political editor of FOX 32 and host of weekly interview show, “Flannery Fired Up,” is retiring at seventy-two, reports the Sun-Times. “In some ways, I hate leaving. But I’m really excited… It’s been fifty years. Ten mayors. Eight governors. Half-a-century is long enough,” he says. “This seems like a good time.”

McKinley Park News Publisher Says AI Can Destroy Local Coverage

“We’ve published tens of thousands of event listings [since 2016] and nearly a thousand original local news articles on topics usually covered nowhere else, with ongoing reporting following important stories and regular scoops on neighborhood news with appeal that often reaches beyond McKinley Park,” McKinley Park News publisher Justin Kerr writes. “We’ve also been working very hard to build this effort toward a sustainable local news business: an enterprise that can support the livelihood of a neighborhood journalist. But all of this means nothing if AI is allowed to steal from us.”

Kerr goes on to detail how the site’s work has been plagiarized in bulk by multiple sources creating the basis for AI. “If this situation is not remedied, there will be simply no reason for me to continue publishing the McKinley Park News, writing neighborhood journalism, or trying to launch my own local news business. Everything I publish will be stolen and used against me in rival interfaces and products I’ll never be able to compete against. That’s why I’ll have to quit publishing the McKinley Park News if things don’t change. I’d imagine the same applies to countless other independent publishers and media outlets. If AI is allowed to steal from us, AI will destroy us, including things we value and rely on like local news.”

MUSIC

COVID Postpones CSO’s Ben Folds Concert Tonight

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association alerts that the CSO Special Concert featuring Ben Folds & the Chicago Symphony Orchestra scheduled for tonight “is postponed due to a recent positive COVID-19 test.” A rescheduled date will be announced. The CSOA Corporate Night benefit event associated with the concert has also been postponed. More here.

Riis Park Future For Re:SET Music Festival Uncertain

“Ald. Ruth Cruz (30th) has pulled her office’s support of a controversial music festival planned for Riis Park that was approved by her predecessor without neighborhood input,” reports Block Club. More than 20,000 tickets have been sold. “AEG Presents has been promoting the Chicago leg of The Re:SET concert series June 23-25 at Riis Park for months and started selling tickets in February. Cruz announced she would not support AEG’s plans for the festival in a letter sent to neighbors Friday night.”

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Equity Arts Named Finalist For $5 Million Spring 2023 Chicago Recovery Plan Award

Equity Arts is one of 133 finalists for a portion of the $54 million in Chicago Recovery Plan grant awards announced earlier this month, the group relays. Equity was chosen for an anticipated grant of $5 million. The money will support a real estate project to develop a 38,000-square-foot creative hub in Wicker Park that combines a retail incubator, café, galleries and space for multiple arts organizations. “A social enterprise at the intersection of art, real estate, and social justice, Equity Arts is a model for arts and cultural preservation in gentrified communities. By expanding the public use of a historic arts building in which Heaven Gallery is currently a tenant, Equity Arts will be an umbrella organization to support a resilient arts ecosystem,” they say.

“The building will be a BIPOC-focused center for racial healing and economic justice that invests in art leaders and entrepreneurs through long-term affordability to arts and professional development. With a full project budget of $17 million, after the funding announcement, the organization is looking to raise an additional $12 million to fund the purchase and redevelopment of 1542-1550 North Milwaukee. A Perpetual Purpose Trust is being created to protect the creative and public use of the building against any future sale.”

Says Equity Arts President Alma Wieser, “The city’s investment in Equity Arts is really an investment in the creative economy that uses arts and culture as a social-good multiplier. Like many major cities all around the world, Chicago is joining the movement toward protecting sacred spaces that serve the public’s greater good.” Adds Eric Williams, owner of the Silver Room and Equity Arts board member, “Space is important. It’s not just about business but how we can fundamentally change society and culture through entrepreneurship.” More here.

Workers Unionize At Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

“Staffers at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, continuing a string of successful organizing drives by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,” reports the Sun-Times.